I'm sure they have good reasons to do what they do. However one really has to scratch their head when they pull Saabs they can't fill up out of cities and replace them with 200s.

Gosh, at that rate it would take Delta 115 years to waste the same amount of money they paid for Comair.

Replace them with 200s? They are pulling out of the cities or drastically reducing service. Total capcity for each EAS city is either being eliminated or greatly reduced. Good move by Delta. If the EAS cities want service so bad they can call up Great Lakes. Highly 'fuel efficient' B1900s and the closest thing to free labor in the airline business with their 'cost efficient' pilots

You also have to remember they might have lost 14 million because these cities were bid on with the Saab flying them and delta switched alot of them to the 200 months ago. Such as Bemiji, Aberdeen, Waterloo, pellston. So they are loosing money because they choose to fly the 200 their when it was priced for the Saab and it scews the load factors. Personally i am split on this decision mainly because i know it is alot of cities XJ flies too

From a financial standpoint, I don't understand why Delta feels it is profitable to eliminate all turboprop flying to their EAS destinations. With oil prices at an all time high, it just doesn't make sense to me. Plus, flying turboprops on short hops into small airfields (as most EAS routes are) seems more cost-effective to me. I've never been the "bean counter" type, so would someone with hard facts enlighten me please?

Thanks,
Lax

Sounds to me like a great opportunity for Great Lakes to make a move back into the Upper Midwest like the good old days.

Yes, what plane do you think they are going to fly into these cities even at a reduced rate? They are replacing the Saab flying that is goin to stay with 200 flying. What else would fly these routes?

EAS contracts are bid on at a fixed rate. As fuel prices rise, margins shrink. When oil prices were pretty stable, airlines could bid these routes and expect to have a relatively stable margin. Now with the rampant oil price volatility, EAS routes can swing from a nice profit to a huge loss in a very short period of time.

Anyone who watched the numbers realized some of NWA's route structure would not survive the merger. For year NWA's O&D markets had been in decline and the Company experienced declining load factors even though they had been aggressive in shrinking capacity. The combination of networks with Delta did not get a genuine "synergistic" pop since the code share agreements had already harvested much of this low hanging fruit.

Certainly not blaming NWA for what was really the result of demographic shifts by people who travel to the cities.

By acquiring these markets, Delta has little choice but to adjust accordingly.